"That's why you need to win," Xue Lian said, her voice unusually quiet.
I sighed deeply, my eyes drifting to the moon beyond the wooden-framed window. My thoughts slid back to Yangyang — my little girl. She had just turned two. Her cheeks were still baby-round, her fingers always clutching mine as if I was the center of her entire world.
But the last thing I ever saw of her was the blood. So much blood, spilling down her neck… my hands trembling, useless… her eyes wide, confused.
A sob caught in my throat. I squeezed myself tightly into the stiff stone pillow, curling in on myself. Silent tears rolled down my cheeks. This wasn't the kind of rebirth I wanted. Where everyone—every face—was a masked enemy, and love was a luxury I could no longer afford.
---
The night swallowed me whole until the darkness blurred into sleep.
[Time jump – a few hours later]
A violent crash tore through the stillness.
Thunder.
I bolted upright. The sky outside pulsed with veins of white light as thunder cracked again, glistening and sharp like shattered glass.
Xue Lian stood by the doorway, draped in a sapphire-blue cloak that shimmered under the moonlight. A wooden basket hung from her arm, lined with worn cloth and fastened tightly with twine.
"Zhè shì bànyè ma?" I asked groggily. (Is this midnight?)
She didn't turn around, only adjusted the basket on her hip. "Míngtiān de nǐ huì gǎnxiè jīntiān de bùwèn." (A day from now, you'll be glad you didn't ask me this.)
She gestured with her chin at the brimming hot tea on the table next to the hour glass. "I made some soul-improving green gas lemon tea for you. It's on the table."
I glanced at the steaming cup, settling my legs down from the bed and making way to the table. I couldn't believe that a day would come that I'd be starved to death.
I took a sip out of the rich bittered syrup tea, making a hitched expression as I sipped in the second time. "You haven't explained why you're going out," I said, the bitterness still clinging to my tongue.
Finally, she faced me.
Her gaze was sharp, serious.
"Finish up the tea, it would give you the immune booster you need. Do you not see the thunder and lightening strike? It is a sign of war...Famine is about to begin," she said. "The thunder striking and the heavy wind? They're not just storms. They're omens. The crops will die first. Then the people. Then the minds. Hunger breeds madness here, Lin Xi. Cannibalism isn't just a horror—it's a history about to repeat."
She looked at me then—really looked. "We either stockpile and survive… or we starve like the rest which we can't afford. Are you up for this?"
"You must be kidding me? You promised me I was only here to kill people. This is ridiculous. I couldn't even sleep, that bed aches and the tea is disgusting. Xue Lian, I want to go home. I want to leave here!"
I muttered with a growling eyes and Xue Lian snuffed in the warm air into the room. "If I knew how to return you to your timeline, the hell I would do it without wasting another time. You complain all the time. I'm sick of you! Stay indoors, you can't afford to get weaker than your stupid body!"
"Excuse me?" I shot back, slamming the teacup down on the table. It rattled against the wood, hot droplets spilling over the edge and seeping into the old grain.
Xue Lian didn't flinch. "You heard me," she said coldly, eyes narrowing. "Your body is pathetic, Lin Xi. A breeze could knock you over. You're not the only one who's lost something. But you whine like the universe owes you peace for simply surviving."
My jaw clenched. I could feel the heat rise behind my eyes again — but this time, it wasn't sorrow. It was rage. "I didn't ask to survive! I didn't ask to wake up in this hellhole where people speak in riddles, expect me to murder strangers, and drink potions like it's afternoon tea!"
"You're right," she said. "You didn't ask. But you were chosen. That mark on your wrist isn't decoration. You were brought here for a purpose. Either fulfill it, or die wishing you had."
I looked down at my wrist — the faint, glowing rune pulsing gently under my skin like a cursed heartbeat. The very thing that chained me to this twisted second life.
"You think I care about a damn purpose when I've already lost everyone?" I hissed, stepping closer. "You talk like pain is fuel, like it's supposed to make me stronger. But what if all it does is burn me from the inside out?"
Xue Lian looked at me then with something almost human behind her eyes — pity… or maybe regret.
"Pain will burn you," she said quietly, "but only you can decide if you'll be ashes or iron when the fire dies."
Silence hung between us like the thick smoke of war.
Then she adjusted the hood over her head and turned to the door.
"Stay here if you want," she muttered. "But when dawn comes and the village starts to rot, don't ask me to save you."
And with that, she stepped out into the storm not looking back at all.
"Yes, go there and do whatever you want you useless system! That's what you are good for!" I stomped my feet in rage, rumbling round the room and stopped at the door. The cold wind hit me hard and I coughed out, my hands reaching for my stomach.
I felt an extra linen wrapped around me. I raised my undergarment up to find a white bandage tied around me. I froze.
The bandage was snug, clean — freshly wrapped with the kind of perfectionism I didn't associate with someone who barked orders like a war general. My fingers hesitated over the fabric, tracing it down to my hip. She had done this.
I turned slowly, my eyes drifting to the table.
The steam had long since faded from the tea. I stepped closer, ignoring the sting in my side, and noticed the inkstone had been shifted slightly — not by me. I moved it farther left, along with the stack of aged books she had left out earlier. Beneath them, tucked deliberately in the corner, was a small brown paper, folded into a perfect triangle.
I stared at it.
It looked out of place. Not random. Hidden.
I unfolded it carefully, and the coarse parchment crackled beneath my fingers, revealing a detailed map drawn in fading ink. At the top, scribbled in firm brushstrokes, were the characters:
神朝地圖
(Map of the Shen Dynasty)
My heart kicked in my chest.
It wasn't just a map — it was annotated. Routes were marked with red dots, each one labeled with times, tides, and unfamiliar glyphs. One of the paths led directly through the village we were in, while another curved into a jagged canyon marked only with the word: Forbidden.
The margins were crowded with Xue Lian's elegant but urgent handwriting — scattered notes in both old script and modern characters. Her voice echoed in my mind.
> "Famine is about to begin."
> "Cannibalism isn't just horror—it's a history about to repeat."
I lowered the paper slightly, the corners trembling in my hands.
She hadn't just dressed my wound. She'd left me this — a silent warning. A choice.
Maybe she was cruel. Maybe she was cold. But maybe… she was trying to keep me alive in the only way she knew how.
A gust of wind rattled the wooden shutters, and outside, lightning split the sky again. The map trembled in my grip.
This wasn't just survival anymore.
It was strategy.
And if I was truly chosen — if I truly had a purpose — then maybe it was time I stopped resisting and started reading the battlefield.
I folded the map back carefully, tucking it into my sash. My fingers hovered over the books she had left behind. One of them had a gold symbol burned into the spine — the same rune etched into my wrist.
A sign?
Or a command?
Either way, I was done waiting.
"Fine," I whispered into the storm. "Let's play your little war, Xue Lian. But I play to win."
I grabbed the map and tucked it securely into my inner sash, pulling the rough woolen cloak from the peg by the door and draped it over my shoulders, yanked the hood low over my head, and stepped outside.
The wind wasn't pleasurable as soon as the doorshed opened up. One step outside was a death sentence talk less of how far it would be and take to catch up to Xue Lian. This weather was inhumane still I pushed outside and the slam of the shed forcibly by the wind was the only realization that I had been locked outside.
I looked onwards, The road had become a treacherous mess of loose gravel and deep potholes hidden beneath the scattered leaves. I fell hard the first time, knees slamming into stone, my breath knocked clean from my lungs. I coughed, mud coating my palms, pain shooting up my legs.
I couldn't see Xue Lian. But I knew she'd taken the eastern pass. The ground dipped there — a valley riddled with old farmers' paths, now swallowed by overgrowth. The map told me that much. Another gust barreled into me, and I fell again, this time sideways, rolling into a bush that tore at my arms. My legs were throbbing now, swollen to the core and frost bitten.
I crawled the next few feet before dragging myself beneath a crooked willow tree on the roadside. I collapsed under its partial shelter, gasping, my back against the trunk.
"Xue----Li---an." My teeth clattered against each other, my body trembling harshly. I coiled up myself, jamming my palms together till I felt warmth rising up in my palms. "How crazy could she be to leave me all by myself?"